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Requiring companies to provide a service to certain customers at a set price without compensation is a violation of the 5th Amendment. Pf course, New York and

Requiring companies to provide a service to certain customers at a set price without compensation is a violation of the 5th Amendment. Pf course, New York and other states got away with this when they refused to allow evictions during the early years of the Covid Pandemic... but it this law goes even further, isn't during a health emergency, and doesn't even allow for a theoretical debt to be "owed" that there is no chance of ever collecting. The law is absurd and absolutely should be stuck down.

kelnos 2y ago
$15/mo is compensation. Corporations are not people, as much as some court decisions and politicians would like us to believe they are. A corporation's 5th amendment rights cannot be violated, because it does not have those rights. Corporate charters are allowed to exist at the pleasure of the government.
- alwa 2y ago
  Is the compensation “just,” though? Seems like an awfully round number to be the result of a fair-minded analysis. The Affordable Care Act mechanism always struck me as one somewhat fair way to do it: the insurers set a price for a more-or-less well-defined product in a well-defined market. They compete with each other on that price, then the government achieves its desired social effects by subsidizing low-income insureds in proportion to that commercially-derived price. Just saying “well, insurance is $5 now” seems less convincingly fair to the people doing the work to deliver the service. And rather less sustainable in the long run.
- ensignavenger 2y ago
  The compensation has to be just, which generally means Fair Market value. Corporations are owned by people, taking something from a corporation is no different than taking the thing from the corporations owners. Further, the law applies to not only corporate ISPs, but also individuals operating an ISP.
GolfPopper 2y ago
Alternatively, the service is unsuitable to be run for-profit and yet needs to exist, it should be run by the government.
- ensignavenger 2y ago
  I don't mind the idea of the government (probably a municipality being the best level, perhaps with funding front he state and federal government) building out (or buying at a just compensation) a fiber optic network and providing the service themselves. Though having the government own the network and selling access to service providers on a open access system may be a better plan than providing the service directly... either way, according to the will of voters, sounds like a fine plan.

kelnos 2y ago

$15/mo is compensation. Corporations are not people, as much as some court decisions and politicians would like us to believe they are. A corporation's 5th amendment rights cannot be violated, because it does not have those rights. Corporate charters are allowed to exist at the pleasure of the government.

alwa 2y ago
Is the compensation “just,” though? Seems like an awfully round number to be the result of a fair-minded analysis. The Affordable Care Act mechanism always struck me as one somewhat fair way to do it: the insurers set a price for a more-or-less well-defined product in a well-defined market. They compete with each other on that price, then the government achieves its desired social effects by subsidizing low-income insureds in proportion to that commercially-derived price. Just saying “well, insurance is $5 now” seems less convincingly fair to the people doing the work to deliver the service. And rather less sustainable in the long run.
ensignavenger 2y ago
The compensation has to be just, which generally means Fair Market value. Corporations are owned by people, taking something from a corporation is no different than taking the thing from the corporations owners. Further, the law applies to not only corporate ISPs, but also individuals operating an ISP.

GolfPopper 2y ago

Alternatively, the service is unsuitable to be run for-profit and yet needs to exist, it should be run by the government.

ensignavenger 2y ago
I don't mind the idea of the government (probably a municipality being the best level, perhaps with funding front he state and federal government) building out (or buying at a just compensation) a fiber optic network and providing the service themselves. Though having the government own the network and selling access to service providers on a open access system may be a better plan than providing the service directly... either way, according to the will of voters, sounds like a fine plan.